The invention relates to a device for introducing material into containers with a material-release mechanism and with a structure that supports a container below the material-release mechanism and that can advance the container past the material-release mechanism.
The container-supporting structure in a known device of this type (German 2 261 416 C3) consists of a horizontal conveyor belt that is subject to a brake. The material-release mechanism is a pair of belts that grips overlapping folding-box blanks as they arrive horizontally, deflects them out of the horizontal and into the vertical over a curved section, and introduces them into shipping cartons that are open at the top over their total length. This procedure is possible because the lower end of the inner conveyor belt in the curved pair of belts is positioned stationary above the shipping carton, whereas the lower end of the outer conveyor belt can be raised and lowered and accordingly positioned far enough inside the shipping carton. The pressure exerted by the blanks arriving upstream of the end of the outer conveyor belt that extends into the shipping carton generates a force on the shipping carton in the direction of conveyance that counteracts the braking force and automatically occasions the advance motion associated with a full carton. Switching from a full shipping carton to the next carton requires extracting the lower end of the outer conveyor belt out of the full carton and introducing it into the next. This inescapable procedure demands a special design and controls and accordingly adds to the expense of the overall device.
In another device for introducing material, full packages in this case, into shipping cartons that are open at the top, the cartons being loaded are positioned on a supporting and conveying structure on a sloping plane. The material-release mechanism that introduces the packages into the shipping carton terminates above the carton. In contrast to the previously described state of the art, the shipping carton is not advanced automatically in this device by the packages in the carton but by an advance mechanism that acts directly on the carton. The only purpose of the sloping orientation of the carton is to shift the introduced packages to one end of the carton. This device is also comparatively expensive due to the separate controls for the advance mechanism.